Cindy DeBoer

Archives for September 2021

Old Is The New Hot

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In this culture where beauty, youth, and tight buttocks are valued more than oceanfront property and where ageism has moved from theory to fact, it is no wonder we fight aging with the tenacity of an NFL middle linebacker. Our culture tells us our best years are behind us once we hit 50 and we might as well start shopping for our headstone and buy the ham on buns for the “after” party.

But I beg to differ.

I turn 55 today. And because my daughter loves me so much she gave me this card:

And she couldn’t be more spot on. Because “hot” is defined as someone who’s got it going on. Someone who turns heads when they walk in the room (even if it’s because her skirt is tucked into her spanx). Someone who knows who they are, likes it, and holds their head high.

THIS LIST, my friends, showcases why we 50-something women are simply the hottest. We got it going on, girls. Yes, we do. Our 50’s truly are the BEST:

  • Our eyesight diminishes. Yes, at first blush, that may seem like a negative – but it’s also true for all our friends and siblings at this age – which is our saving grace. After spending an entire day out recently visiting multiple places and people, I came home and checked my face in the mirror (after bedecking my READING GLASSES!) and discovered I looked like a freakin’ clown – my eyeliner was lopsided on my left eye and practically extended out to my ear on the right eye, my lipstick was bleeding into all my lip wrinkles, my blush looked like war paint painted on by a four year old, and my foundation made a brown line at my jaw line! But I just shrugged my shoulders and had a good belly laugh! Afterall, I had only been around others who were even older than me that day – so I’m sure they never noticed!
  • Dusting becomes optional. One unbearably hot summer night in 1991 after our church softball game (does anybody play church softball anymore??? Those holy ball field events should be resurrected to help save America) we were invited to a couples’ home at the spur of the moment because they had a swimming pool. I remember sitting in their family room after the swim and noticing thick, thick dust on everything. I could have written my name on the coffee table, the TV, and the windowsills. I was 25 years old and thought that woman must be such a lazy slug of an old lady (she was 50-something at the time) and I was all kinds of ignorant judge-y toward her. Now that I’ve turned 50-something, I have the utmost respect for that woman. She was just mentoring me and showing me and how to live my best life. These days, you can come to my house anytime you want – even unannounced! – and I will be happy to “mentor” you, too!
  • We become a GRANDPARENT!!! I’m pretty sure this is the coolest thing about our 50’s. COVID hasn’t let me have much time with my grandbaby. But I’ll tell you what – she is good, she is kind, and she is IMPORTANT. She’s already speaking 4 languages fluently, searching for a cure for LAM, and solving our refugee crisis and she’s barely five months old. She’s already the best child that ever walked this planet and she’s not even walking yet.
  • We finally feel liberated enough to not wear any makeup at all when going to public spaces where actual people may see us. We know that we will scare people and we know they will talk about us, but we care about THAT as much as we care about the 973rd TikTok video our kids want to show us.
  • We know things. Important things that all the younger girls only wish they knew. Things like:
    • Never wash a chenille throw blanket
    • Never dump rice down the garbage disposal
    • Maybelline works just as well as Estee Lauder
    • It’s okay to let go of friendships that are exhausting.
    • The deli makes delicious food and if you serve it in your own bowls, no one has to know.
    • Unless you enjoy bladder infections, never hold your pee in
    • Never waste money on a strapless bra. Simply tucking down your straps works just as well
    • It’s so much quicker to run out and buy new miniblinds than to clean old ones
  • Road rage seems to just disappear. With so much more time on our hands, we just don’t seem as frazzled. We’re not running 18 children in 23 directions for the 47th day in a row and somehow we’re just more relaxed now. I now love driving and I now drive the actual speed limit and let other cars merge in politely instead of zipping past all the doggone slow drivers and flipping them off for making me late for the really, really, really important awards banquet of the sport for which my child spent her life learning only to sit the bench all year.
  • We can now walk in our basements. The 50’s mean we finally have enough time to get around to sorting all those kids’ memory boxes and 30 plus years of “I’ll-get-to-it-someday” stuff. School art class “masterpieces,” little league trophies, Halloween costumes, birthday cards, special-moment baby clothes, the wedding dress, the wedding invitations, napkins, and programs (why, oh why???), and the china you always thought you’d need but never used – it is time, my friends – to say good-bye. Our 50’s are for dealing with basements. Not a moment before. Young mommas and anyone below 50, don’t you DARE take a precious moment from those precious years to dig through the boxes of “stuff.” You will have PLENTY of time for that when the last baby packs up her suitcase and moves out.
  • We get a to get a dog again. This is definitely a blessing, but also a significant marker of the “downhill phase” of life. Upon getting married, most of us get a dog to see if we can take care of living things. If it works out alright, we decide to have children. Now, the children are gone and we’re pretty sure we screwed them all up, so we console ourselves by getting a dog again because dogs have pea-brains and don’t need therapy when they get older.
  • We find Jesus. We may have known him our whole lives, but there’s something about our 50’s that unveils a whole new dimension to our spiritual life. God comes to us bigger, better, more loving, more inclusive, more merciful and gracious and more everything in our 50’s. I’m betting this continues on from here to the end. Perhaps it just takes living 50+ years to NEED a Savior to be all those things in order to experience him in all those ways.

To me, Jesus has been the very best part of my 50’s. Both now and forevermore. Amen.

“Wisdom belongs to the aged and understanding to the old.” Job 12:12

My Magnum Opus: The Parenting Marathon

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Not my actual legs

I recently volunteered at a triathlon and discovered many interesting things about these athletic beasts. Besides being insane for paying actual money to brutalize their bodies and not knowing the difference between fun and pain, I noticed that at the finish they usually fell into one of three categories: 1) The nonchalant. “Yeah, I just finished a triathlon. No big deal. I’ll probably do it again tomorrow. 2) The triumphant – “Woooooo Hooooo!!! I f****** finished!!! Hey mom – take my picture!!! And 3) The Puker. No explanation necessary.

Well, I just finished my own marathon of sorts and I see that I am clearly from the third category. I am a puker.

Last week, our fourth child moved out for the final time and now it’s just me and Paul again. It’s been 30 years since it was just the two of us and I truly feel as if we’ve just completed a 30-year marathon – running, running, running as if our life depended on it and pushing our minds and bodies to their utter limits.

I remember the day we took our first newborn home from the hospital like it was this morning. We pulled into the garage, turned off the car, and shut the garage door behind us. I looked at Paul, then into the backseat where baby Andy was all nestled comfy-cozy in his way-too-big car seat and said, “Oh shit. Here we go.”

We were so young, naive, and impulsive and I still can’t believe the good people of Zeeland Hospital felt that just because we were able to produce the proper car seat, we were able to care for a CHILD!!! But, despite our inhibitions, we unbuckled the kid, brought him inside and gave him our best effort.

Then in a flash there was baby number 2. Another flash and a blink later came child number 3. And right in the middle of diapers and sippy cups and horrific sleep schedules, we thought it’d be a good idea to adopt a child. And wham – there she came – on a TACA flight out of Guatemala in 2001. We were still relatively young and naive, and our impulsivity had only gotten worse – but at least now our resume included parenting 3 other children.

The years went by like a melting ice cream cone on a hot July day. I licked and licked and tried to savor the taste of each delicious lick – but life melted away so quickly, I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten some of the taste.

Last week was so weird. The day we moved the last child out for the last time, we returned home to a nearly unbearable quiet. I flashbacked to when little children would come running to the door to greet us whenever we came home. I felt a deep ache in my soul knowing those days are fully, completely, dreadfully behind us.  Paul and I stood in silence for a few moments as neither of us knew what to say.

We also didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know if we should run upstairs and have loud sex, have a solemn moment of prayer and build a commemorative altar from the kids’ college binders, or crank up some fantastic Queen and Bon Jovi and dance on the living room furniture.

Nothing felt right.

Except maybe a nap.

Or puking.

All I know for sure is I am not well – something deep inside of me is still longing. My head, my heart, my soul, my entire body aches and most days I feel like puking. We’re definitely going to need some time to recover, process and debrief this 30-year parenting marathon.

Some days I feel like stealing away to Figi, or Tahiti, or the Galapagos Islands and just stare at the ocean for about 30 hours. One hour for every year of parenting. And when I’m done with that I will cry, shout – no, SCREAM into those seas or to whomever else will listen (God?) for the absolute audacity of time to move so quickly. Can’t you do something about that, God? Do you not know that I am dying and I don’t have time for wasted time? Do you not know that I need more of it? Can you slow it, kind sir? Please, for the sake of the sick and the suffering, can you slow it down???

Standing in our quiet living room that post-marathon day – heaving and gasping for air as I “puked” all over Paul and the floor – I realized parenting may have been the hardest thing we’ve ever done (or will do), but it is nevertheless our magnum opus – the best we have to offer the world. We just completed a 30-year-marathon of birthing, raising, and releasing HUMANS into the world!!! We lived as large as we knew how to and gave those kids a hell of a ride all the while screwing up some parts of it royally. But one thing I do know: If I should die soon, I will not regret having poured myself out for those four kids and teaching them that, above all else, we ultimately live to give God the glory for every single one of our gifted breaths.

Well, now that I’m done puking, I guess I’ll make dinner.

My lungs still hurt and I need to take a lot of deep breaths before we get back up again and relace our shoes for whatever God has next for us. For this moment, I need to just sit for a bit. Not Figi or Tahiti or Galapagos. Just here in Grand Rapids for a bit.

Just a bit.

I’ll get up shortly. I’ll get up.

Life isn’t waiting for me. We have much to do! We have to revisit the things we used to enjoy when it was just the two of us, we must help Syrian and Central American – and now Afghanistan – refugees!! And the Hondurans, the Haitians, and Lebanese as well!!  We have no time to waste to share ALL the necessary things with our adult kids before we lose our minds and can’t remember the things. We need to spread love to our neighbors in our struggling neighborhood, and rock this grandparenting gig, and give our best gifts to our local urban school and church, and give my mom the best possible finish to this life and at least a million other things.

No, we’re no longer running the child-rearing marathon, but I sure as heck don’t want to hang up my “running shoes” yet either! Although we now run just the two of us and are navigating the course with a stupid lung disease, a few more aches and pains, and at a much slower pace, we still beg of God to help us “strip off any weight that slows us down and especially the sins that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1 NLT)

Time to run our next marathon, Paul. Let’s get after it.